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Business & Tech

Racine Businesses Back Racine Unified Referendum Marketing Campaign

Johnson owned companies among the largest contributors.

Five major businesses—including SC Johnson and Twin Disc Inc.—have bankrolled a campaign promoting the April 5 referendum for the Racine Unified School District.

According to a campaign finance report filed March 22, the Committee for Building Success has received $41,050 in contributions and spent $38,910.66. The committee’s chairman is John Crimmings, a long-time Racine real estate agent, and its treasurer is David Isaacson, a former School Board member and a founder of a nonprofit fund that can lobby on behalf of education.

The committee has funded three full color direct-mail brochures, a public opinion survey, graphic designs and communications consulting, the report shows. The committee has also purchased radio advertising, which was not shown on the report, and co-sponsored a public meeting about the referendum at the Racine Public Library last Wednesday (March 30.)

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RUSD is asking voters to consider three referendum questions—an $83.5 million bond issue to construct five new elementary schools and remodel five other schools; $35 million in increased spending over a seven-year period to maintain existing programs and hire additional teachers, and continuation of an earlier referendum to add $1 million annually over 10 years to the district’s general fund balance.

The Committee for Building Success received $50 in January from the Fund for Effective Public Schools Inc., a 501(c)4 organization that was launched prior to a 2008 RUSD referendum. Voters approved that referendum question to spend $16.5 million for facilities maintenance projects over a five-year period.

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“The fund is still active. We’re looking for projects to do,” said Isaacson.

After the initial money, the Committee for Building Success received contributions from:

  • Twin Disc, Inc., $10,000
  • Johnson Financial Group, $10,000
  • SC Johnson, $15,000
  • Diversey, Inc., $5,000
  • Racine Federated Inc., $1,000

The school district needs a combination of better curriculum, better delivery of educational services and better buildings, says Bill Schalk, a former School Board member who helped create the Fund for Effective Public Schools and is a member of the Committee for Building Success.

“Now is where the rubber meets the road,” Schalk says.

Organizing started last summer

The current pro-school referendum campaign initially started organizing last summer and began to take shape in November. Liz Coyle, an Atlanta-based communications consultant with Racine ties, helped with message development and planning.

Because state law prevents school district officials from advocating a referendum, it’s up to the private sector to raise money to promote a yes vote.

“Individuals and companies here recognize the importance of providing the resources that RUSD needs to achieve its goals,” says Coyle.

Coyle says that she has consulted on local education issues for the past eight or nine years. She lived in Racine for five years in the early 1990s while her husband was employed at SC Johnson.

In Atlanta, Coyle has been a board member of the Council of Intown Neighborhoods and Schools (CINS), an independent organization that works to foster quality education in a cluster of 11 schools within the Atlanta public school system.

“I’ve been able to put that passion to work for Racine,” she says.

Coyle was paid $3,695.16 for her work on behalf of the Committee for Building Student Success, according to the campaign finance document.

The Shop Consulting Inc., a Madison-based public affairs and strategic communications firm, received $19,090.50 to design, produce and mail brochures and was paid $8,800 for media and consulting. Education is among the firm’s specialty areas; past clients include the National Education Association and the Wisconsin Education Association Council, according to its website.

The Madison firm also received $6,800 for a public opinion survey of Racine area residents. That poll of 305 RUSD voters was conducted in late July to help provide a campaign strategy and messaging.

The direct-mail cards, produced for the Committee for Building Student Success, urge a yes vote on all three referendum questions “for our kids, for our future!”

 RUSD materials

For its part, RUSD has produced posters, two fliers, a newsletter and a video and also created a dedicated area on its website to communicate with the public about the referendum.

The district has spent about $7,900 to produce and delivered printed materials in advance of the referendum vote, according to spokesperson Stacy Tapp. The materials, including the website updates, were written and designed in-house.

The largest expenditure ($6,125) was to print 47,000 copies of a “special referendum issue” of the district’s Inside Unified newsletter. The four-page newsletter was mailed to all RUSD families and inserted in the Racine Journal Times and Insider News newspapers.

The fliers and newsletters list facts about referendum’s costs and purposes. Readers are invited to the district’s website (www.racine.k12.wi.us) for additional detail, including a calculator to determine the effect the referendum would have on individual property tax bills and a designated email address to submit referendum questions.

Tapp reported that visitors have posted two to three emails weekly during past several weeks and the website’s referendum page had more than 800 unique visitors between Feb. 28 and March 28.

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